Lebanon Bologna (Traditional)

This well known American sausage has its roots in the town of Lebanon, Pennsylvania, where it was made by German settlers. Lebanon Bologna is a semi-dry, fermented, heavily smoked, all-beef sausage which is not cooked. The traditional process (no starter cultures) calls for curing beef at 4-6º C (40-43º F) for 10 days.

Meats

Metric

US

beef

1000 g

2.20 lb.

Ingredients per 1000g (1 kg) of meat

salt

28 g

5 tsp.

Cure #1

2.5 g

½ tsp.

sugar, 3%

30 g

6 tsp.

dextrose (glucose), 0.3%

3.0 g

½ tsp.

pepper

3.0 g

1½ tsp.

allspice

2.0 g

1 tsp.

cinnamon

2.0 g

1 tsp.

cloves, ground

1.0 g

½ tsp.

ginger

0.5 g

⅓ tsp.

Instructions

Curing. Grind beef with a large plate (3/4”, 20 mm), mix with salt, Cure #1 and sugar and keep for 10 days at 4-6º C (40-43º F).

Grind cured beef through 1/8 - 3/16” (3-5 mm) plate.

Mix ground meat with all ingredients.

Stuff sausage mix into 40-120 mm casings. Natural beef middles, collagen or fibrous casings. The larger casings are tied and stockinetted or laced with butcher twine for support as this is a large and heavy sausage.

Cold smoke for 4-8 days at < 22º C, 72º F, 85% humidity.

For a drier sausage: dry at 16-12º C (60-54º F), 85-80% humidity.

Store sausages at 10-15º C (50-59º F), < 75% humidity.

Notes

Final pH: around 4.2-4.4, water activity 0.93-0.96, it is a moist sausage but extremely stable due to its low final pH. The sausage is often left for 3 days at 4-6º C (40-43º F) for additional ripening. The sausage was traditionally cold smoked for 7 days in winter months and 4 days in the summer.